T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T will probably have to make call centers speak great English again

The FCC is at it again and will try to bring call centers back to the US. Those who are still based overseas must employ workers who can understand and speak English in a way that's good enough for Americans.

They're not banned yet

Several weeks ago, we told you that the FCC may force AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon to make a change customers have been yearning for. The Federal Communications Commission hasn't let go of this idea and its chairman, Brendan Carr, said once again that foreign-based call centers are responsible for confusion, delayed support and even security risks.

So, the idea is for call centers to return to the US, or at least make sure that those call centers that remain abroad, employ only people that can speak the kind of English that US users can understand.

At the current time, the FCC is not saying foreign-based call centers are banned. But a proposition has been made to limit the percentage of calls that non-US call centers can answer.

This will be a major shift, since it's now about a quarter of a century that the US has relied on foreign-based call centers.

People are not content

Despite the fact that foreign call centers have been a thing since the late 1990s and early 2000s, people don't find them particularly helpful.

In one of our PhoneArena polls, we asked you – "Have you ever had trouble speaking to carrier reps due to language barriers?"

Almost 4,000 people responded:

• Yes, the rep's instructions were misleading. – 57.79%
• Yes, I had to visit a store instead. – 33.29%
• No, living in the US, I am exposed to diverse accents. – 8.92%

These are some serious numbers. Less than one in ten is actually OK with the way things are right now.

A staggering 91% say that they received misleading information or had to visit a telco's physical store in order to get adequate help, since the call centers were of no use.

I think for some, it'd be tempting to paint this recent FCC move as some sort of hideous human rights violation or worse, but I beg to differ. At the end of the day, you don't care who is on the other end of the phone, what their belief is or what they look like.

You want to get stuff done, and quickly. If you can't receive support, then it's the company's job to find a better call center. Trouble is, end users can't simply walk away from, say, Verizon and go to AT&T (or vice versa) if they don't like the call center service. The way things are, everybody uses offshore call centers.

That's why it makes sense for the FCC to step in.

The FCC idea

Following a unanimous vote, the FCC wants to shift more control and transparency back to American consumers.

The proposed rules would mandate that overseas agents be proficient in American English, require immediate disclosure when a call is handled outside the US and grant customers the right to be transferred to a domestic call center upon request.

Additionally, the commission aims to cap the volume of international support calls, restrict sensitive transactions to US-based centers and completely prohibit the use of representatives located in "foreign adversary" nations.

To ensure accountability, providers would be forced to disclose their foreign call percentages on broadband labels and file regular compliance reports with the FCC.

Will AI step in?

Yeah, probably. That would be another unpopular move, though. People don't find AI chatbots particularly useful at the moment.

According to Roger Entner (analyst and founder of Recon Analytics), people's satisfaction levels with AI chatbots are "atrocious", based on a recent survey of more than 75,000 respondents.